Four days ago, I recieved the following kind and appreciated message via email -

I participated in your poll and saw your follow up post. I know I’m in the minority but I almost never look at comments on posts, not just at WasWatching but on most other blogs I follow. There’s almost never anything worth looking at after the third or fourth comment. I know that in some cases there are literate and thoughtful contributors who help build a community around a blog, but too often they get obscured by the trolls, and I’d just as soon not bother.

Meantime I will keep coming back for the posts. I’d encourage you to continue to do it the way you’re doing it now – for yourself and your other contributors, make it your own, keep the personal perspective, and make it more like a newspaper column. It’s a great counterpoint to something like the LoHud blog, which seems to have lot less “color” since Abraham left for Boston.

I wonder how many people there are like me who don’t look at comments, don’t try to engage in the flame wars that break out. You probably don’t want to run another poll for a while, but it might be interesting to ask that sometime in the future when you’re doing this kind of research. Meantime, know that there are some of us who come for the content and never show up in the comments. Keep on doing what you’re doing – all the best.

Comments on Reading Comments Survey

Depends on the blog. This and Bronx Banter are my primary sites. I’ll do fangraphs, but if there’s a hot button issue, the comment section gets unwieldy. Same thing with Dodger Thoughts after they made the move. Anyone else miss the Toaster?

LoHud, NYDN, etc, I never really bothered with them, because of the trolls. I’ll read a column or two, but for the most part I tend to stay away from the comments section.

I like the camaraderie here and at BB, so I keep coming back and posting.

I read this site faithfully because of Steve’s writing. He’s a genuine fan. Loves the Yankees but is not always thrilled w/ their leadership, pplayers, how they’re playing, etc. I like that he’s not a rah-rah writer. I like that he’s very knowledgeable. I like that the name of the blog remembers The Scooter, one of my all time Yankees.

I read the comments and add to them when moved to do so. I mentioned on another post that I dislike the personal attacks a lot. As President Obama says, “you can disagree w/o being disagreeable”.

I read a political log daily that doesn’t include readers comments unless one strikes the blog writer’s fancy for some reason. Maybe Steve should consider doing that or editing the comments. It is his blog afterall – not ours. Steve is a better person than me, I guess. If I were Steve, I’d remove the disrespectfull comments.

It’s quite obvious the writer of the email doesn’t read the comments. Comments here are not a problem. There’s only 4-5 regular commentators, they usually counter your ‘yankees are doomed’ views, and generally try to back up their points. I don’t see the problem, and I don’t see trolls.

He’s a fan of Peter Abraham. Pete’s writing at lohud was often of the trolling nature (writing simply to get a reaction). And because of that, while Abraham was at lohud the comment section was embarrassing. It’s nice to get emails from fans, but the writer appears to be clueless about comments and the definition of a troll.